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Better. And Betsy’s in town.

Good.

I’d met Lacey’s aunt before—she had a solid head on her shoulders. If anyone could straighten Ms. Harper out, it was her, she wouldn’t tolerate any foolishness.

How’s school?

I knew what she was asking—if it was safe yet.

I think I have a lead on Mason. But I haven’t gotten a chance to get close to him yet to make sure.

Hurry?

I will. Believe me.

Xoxoxoxoxoxo.

“Do it,” Emily hissed behind me. She’d been hissing it with increasingly louder volume that I’d been ignoring for Lacey, communing with my phone, so I had no idea what she was hissing it about or who to until—I felt someone yank the back of my bra, attempting to unsnap it.

But it took three clasps to hold my breasts in and up—and whomever she’d sent over was an amateur. I turned slowly and saw Brad Tucker there, a freshman, turning bright red.

“Brad,” I said, my voice low and full of warning. I could feel the air crackling around us as the light became brighter in my periphery. Then air brakes deflated and the door opened. We were at my stop. I stood, scanning the back of the busimpassively, and walked off at my own pace. I stopped when I got to the sidewalk and watched the bus roll away, listening to their raucous laughter out the open windows, and had a feeling I knew why Liam was pissed.

My mother was more cool with me helping Liam to ‘study’ than I was. I mean, I wanted to go—and needed to, if I was going to somehow touch Mason’s phone before prom—but after today in chemistry class, I didn’t know. Clearly, Danny had shown or told other people about the bra photo I’d sent him. How was I going to play that down? How could I?

I heard Liam’s tires when he pulled up and sprang for the door. “Be back soon, bye!” I shouted and waved and closed the door behind me.

I was wearing a combo outfit, jeans and one of my mother’s tops I’d preemptively washed and sandals and I pulled myself up into the cab, trying to pretend things were normal. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Liam said back, his voice flat. His eyes only flickered in the rear view mirror in acknowledgement.

We drove in silence for as long as I could stand. I pulled my legs up into the seat with me. “What’s up?”

“I thought you weren’t like the other girls.”

“I’m gonna need some more references for that sentence to make sense.”

“You know what I’m talking about, Jessie—Danny showed that picture of your bra to the whole team.”

Up until then I’d been ready to play innocent and deny it. But the tone he had with me—it made me want to push back. “So what?”

“So—Hailey would’ve never done that.”

“I’m not Hailey.”

“I know. That was the point.” I watched his knuckles go white as he wrung the steering wheel. He was angry—angrier than he had a right to be. I could almost feel the pressure dropping in the truck’s cab like right before a storm and I remembered Darius’s warning about ‘roids.

“I think you should pull over now,” I said, and to my surprise, he did. He turned to me when the car was in park, though the engine continued to idle.

“What’s the point of all this, Liam? I mean, you practically haven’t talked to me since fifth grade, and now, what is this?” I gestured between us. “Why am I even here? Why did you choose now, of all times, to start with me?”

“I just—I thought you’d be different.”

Oh, I am different, believe me.“How so?”

“Danny just—he always gets the girls.”

“Does he now,” I said without inflection.